The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday revealed it has filed charges against the Marlborough-based telecommunications and multi-level marketing firm TelexFREE, adding to the company's week of woes.

The SEC said it had filed its charges on Tuesday but kept them under seal in connection with the commission's request for an immediate freeze of TelexFREE's assets, which was granted by the U.S. District Court in Boston on Wednesday.

After implementing the asset freeze, the SEC lifted the seal on the charges on Thursday.

Like Secretary William Galvin's complaint, the SEC's allegations are that the multinational company is an elaborate Ponzi scheme that used a front of selling a phone service.

“This is one of several pyramid-scheme cases that the SEC has filed recently where parties claim that investors can earn profits by recruiting other members or investors instead of doing any real work,” Paul G. Levenson, director of the SEC's Boston Regional Office, said. “Even after the SEC and other regulators have alleged that such programs are a fraud, the promoters of TelexFREE continued selling the false promise of easy money.”

The commission's complaint charges the company with violating the registration and antifraud provisions of U.S. securities laws, as well as the SEC's antifraud rule.

With the asset freeze in place, the commission is now racing to locate TelexFREE's scattered assets, Levenson said.

"We're moving as fast as we can."

As of Thursday, he said the SEC had identified roughly $39 million in assets in public records - a small piece of the estimated $300 million the company is alleged to have brought in since November 2012, according to the commission.

If the SEC's case against TelexFREE is successful in court, the commission could eventually set up a mechanism with which to repay investors who have lost money in the scheme, Levenson said. One option, he said, would be to create a "fair fund" in which the seized money could be pooled and eventually distributed to victims.

But right now the commission has no process by which defrauded customers are able to put in claims, he said.

Dozens of customers, which TelexFREE called "associates" or "promoters," have contacted the Daily News this week to express concerns about their lost investments, with some claiming they had paid as much as $18,000 to the company.

Page 2 of 2 - TelexFREE's marketing system worked by encouraging people to pay up to $1,375 to become promoters for the company, a role in which they could earn more than double that investment by posting ads and recruiting more investors, all while never having to actually sell the company's product.

In addition to charging the company itself, the SEC has also charged co-owner James Merrill of Ashland; co-owner and treasurer Carlos Wanzeler of Northborough; CFO Joseph H. Craft of Boonville, Ind.; and international sales director Steve Labriola of Northbridge. Four TelexFREE promoters have also been charged in the complaint: Sanderley Rodrigues de Vasconcelos, a former Revere resident who now lives in Davenport, Fla.; Santiago De La Rosa of Lynn; Randy N. Crosby of Alpharetta, Ga.; and Faith R. Sloan of Chicago.

Scott O'Connell can be reached at 508-626-4449 or soconnell@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottOConnellMW